Kevin Smith Shares Secrets Of His Planned Episode For DC’s Now-Canceled “Strange Adventures” Animated Series
JB Augustine
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Slated for HBO Max and produced by Arrowverse developer Greg Berlanti, Kevin Smith’s adaptation of Strange Adventures is joining Batgirl and the Wonder Twins series on the scrap heap.
Source: Kevin Smith, YouTube
Confirmation of this sudden development at DC came from Smith himself during his recent appearance on Hollywood Babble-On, when he revealed the Supergirl writer he was working on an episode with, Eric Carrasco, called the director to tell him the project was called off.
“I got a call the other day from Eric before all of this story broke and he was just like ‘Strange Adventures is officially dead,’ and I was like ‘What the f–k, are you serious?!’” said Smith. “I know we haven’t heard from them for a while, but I guess this goes in parts with the new moves with David Zaslav.”
Smith would lament, “It feels like what was once, to me, a promising future of we are going to see a bunch of DC stuff on HBO Max; MORE DC stuff than we would see theatrically, including s–t like Strange Adventures…gone! All of it is just f–king gone now.”
He added, “But good lord, I thought Strange Adventures being a [casualty] kind of made sense to me. Nobody necessarily knows these characters; it sounded like an expensive show.”
Discussing the plot of his episode, the Jay and Silent Bob creator revealed it entailed Jimmy Olsen being taken to Bizarro World where it’s gradually let on that something isn’t quite right about the Superman Jimmy deals with in that world.
Source: Superman The Animated Series, Kids WB!
Naturally, the poser Big Blue would turn out to be Bizarro in a twist that’s not a real shock but in a more amazing nugget, Smith was pursuing would-be 90s Man of Steel Nic Cage for the part, although Smith admits he never reached a point where that was a lock.
After his chat with Babble-On, he went to Twitter to demystify his experience of being attached to Strange Adventures and what the intent was for the Twilight Zone-style anthology show.
Berlanti’s involvement, for one thing, had a few fans assuming it would tie into the Arrowverse somewhat, but Smith debunked that notion to assure everyone it was to be a standalone Elseworld affair.
No – total stand-alone series.
Not even Arrowverse-adjacent.— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) August 10, 2022
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The whole point of the show, he explained, was to dig deeper into DC’s “toy box” and spotlight less-established characters on streaming while the movie-verse “did their thing.”
“Their idea was that [Superman], [Batman], [Wonder Woman], [Aquaman] are well-known, so they wanted to dig deeper in the toy box for other characters to play with while the movie folks did their thing,” Smith tweeted. “There were lots of characters we could reference but not show based on pre-existing plans of the movie division.”
Their idea was that S, B, WW, A are well-known, so they wanted to dig deeper in the toy box for other characters to play with while the movie folks did their thing. There were lots of characters we could reference but not show based on pre-existing plans of the movie division.
— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) August 10, 2022
Smith was aware of these precepts and fine with them. “Explained above. But in short, the show had parameters that were communicated before I accepted the gig, so I had no complaints about that,” he later posted.
Explained above. But in short, the show had parameters that were communicated before I accepted the gig, so I had no complaints about that.
— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) August 10, 2022
Superman was off limits, a bummer of a fact Smith had to clarify wasn’t a malicious decision by the Toby Emmerich WarnerMedia regime to screw the fans. “It was less that and more what they were allowed to do with any DC characters based on the pre-existing movie division plans,” he explained.
“So if you like the movies, then this boots thing was good for you, not bad. They were preserving the movie versions while also exploring other DC comics,” he added.
It was less that and more what they were allowed to do with any DC characters based on the pre-existing movie division plans.
So if you like the movies, then this boots thing was good for you, not bad. They were preserving the movie versions while also exploring other DC comics.— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) August 10, 2022
So, like Peacemaker, it was going to be silhouettes and “boots” but no Henry Cavill if Superman appeared at all. Smith stresses this wasn’t his idea, just a studio mandate “we were *allowed* as regards Superman,” as each story was a standalone Showcase launching other characters.
To be fair, that wasn’t my idea.
Boots was the only option we were *allowed* as regards Superman.
But that was more about what the studio and network envisioned the show to be: a bunch of standalone stories launching their many other characters.— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) August 10, 2022
Well, the launch was canceled on the tarmac. On the plus side, we can’t call it a failure, technically.
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